Amstel Hotel, Amsterdam, 1989. Stumbled out of the closet after 40 years of repression. This blog is dedicated to that day. Original photography, New York, men, random thoughts.

HOMOPHOBIA

05/24/2013

It never ceases to amaze me how deftly the mainstream media and even many gay rights groups and leaders dance around the most important gay rights issue in the land: child abuse. Gay marriage is a subtle version of this devil's dance. This latest decision by the Boy Scouts of America is less a breakhrough in my view than it is yet another perverse blow to society's core responsiblity to provide a safe and nurturing environment for childhood. What nation can hope for any kind of positive future without that basic and essential guarantee? With each daily assault by clergy, politicians and so-called conservative media on the self-esteem, personal security, hopes and dreams of our gay children, many of whom begin to realize their orientation as early as the age of four, we condone child abuse. The BSA decision tells our kids that while they won't be punished for being themselves, they must not forget that they will never be worthy enough to stand as a mentor, leader, role model or fully realized, loved and accepted human being. The BSA decision will send even more gay kids down the road to substance abuse, chronic depression, shattered hopes and even suicide.

05/23/2013

Am I the only one fascinated by the fact that millions of Americans believe that if the sex organ of a member of the opposite sex makes you moist, you have a Jesus-given right to cancel democracy? From whence does this belief derive? Do Priests hold up giant pictures of vaginas at Sunday services and then tell all the men in the church that if they are experiencing an erection they are legally exempt from Constitutional law?

05/20/2013

In response to the wave of violence in Manhattan against gay men including the nightmare murder of Mark Carson, rallies are being held out of sight of anyone who matters. Clearly the polite Manhattan gays, the police and the city's elected officials don't want to disrupt or upset the ring leaders.

A rally in the Village, especially in front of the Gay Community Center is almost comical. The violence will continue until the outrage is delivered publically and relentlessly to the front door of Saint Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avneue and to 900 Rogers Avenue in the Bronx, at the doorstep of Ruben Diaz Sr. Until outrage, protests and rallies are deliverd to the doorsteps of every church and cathedral in the city that weekly stage hate rallies against this city's gay men, women and children, the violence will continue and those responsible for the violence will rest comfortably in their beds.

The root of the problem is the national acceptance of bigotry as a mainstream political and religious position. And gay-friendly New York City is no exception.

05/18/2013

As France becomes the 14th country to end discrimination based on sexual orientation, we are reminded that America is not the greatest democracy on earth and that America is a nation where millions of men, women and children are still marginalized, diminished and segregated by religious persecution.

05/17/2013

05/14/2013

Cowardly and misguided gay and gay-friendly activists and politicians around town are blabbering on and on about the two horrific anti-gay attacks that occurred just a few blocks south of my home and a couple of blocks west of my office.

These recent extremely violent and near fatal gay bashings scare the crap out of me, but the thugs behind these disgusting incidents are not the problem. The problem is that even in "gay-friendly" New York City we treat bigotry, hate-mongering and gay child abuse as a politically and religiously viable point of view.

Idiot sports fans and drunks spilling out of Madison Square Garden, Penn Station and the local bars are at best foot soldiers of an established network of criminals who crusade daily against equality, tolerance and love-- criminals who call us abominations, criminals who consign gay children to homelessness and despair, criminals who threaten and promise crimes against humanity. And then we are suprised when some of their minions actually do their bidding?

The discussion should focus on Cardinal Dolan, a wasp's nest of passionately gay-bashing black and Hispanic clergy who rally their mindless faithful every Sunday, and elected Republican politicians who pop up like festering sores in Staten Island and Queens.

Pit Bulls are not the problem, the problem is their human trainers.

The morons who beat those poor gay boys to a bloody pulp can proudly boast that their actions were validated and encouraged by a robust number of our own civic and "religious" leaders. Demanding justice has nothing to do with arresting and prosecuting these poor miguided souls; it has to do with shutting down the officially-sanctioned machinery of institutionalized hate that is as active in this city as it is anywhere else in this dysfunctional country.

As long as the likes of Cardinal Dolan are not shut down, there will always be a fresh supply of rabid dogs sniffing us out.

05/11/2013

Republican women are a really special (as in short bus special) breed apart. And I don't just mean the usually frightening hair and drag queen level approach to cosmetics. So here's this mush-brained medieval Republican wench from the Minnesota legislature who is actually sobbing--real tears sobbing--over the fact that the gay marriage "issue" is dividing the people of Minnesota at a time when "we all have to come together as one" while she's crusading to marginalize hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans and deny them a normal mainstream life.

Why is it legal to put down rabid dogs and crippled horses but not Republicans?

And then, of course, there is this. Millions of our fellow Americans imagined this as Presidential material? Rapid dogs, crippled horses and Republicans, oh my.

The Vatican has launched a new front in its war on children, linking marriage equality in Delaware and Rhode Island (and Jesus-willing, Minnesota by next week) to child abuse. The Vatican believes that straight and gay children should be denied any hope of normalcy, a happy and nurturing childhood, a secure family, self-esteem and financial security. In some circles that is called criminal child abuse, in America it is called religious freedom.

05/09/2013

Exactly. It ain't got none. None at all. And yet this nation persists in dignifying bigotry with labels like Christianity, religious freedom, conservatism, traditionalism and First Amendment rights.

I would turn the gay rights war from a struggle for popular acceptance to a wholesale condemnation of those who daily insult and attack the United States Constitution and this nation's most "sacred" document.

As Americans there are the words that must guide us all, in all ways and under all circumstances.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Freedom and human rights should never be subject to popular whim, ignorance and fear.

How can we calmly accept those who fight equality, diversity, tolerance and freedom as freedom and democracy loving Americans? I say to the Cardinal Dolans, John Boehners and Pat Robertsons of the world: Live up to your civic responsibilities as American citizens and honor freedom and democracy.

I don't need your acceptance. I need you to step away from your un-American and bigoted ways and accept the laws and guiding principles of this potentially great nation.